Mod+ 242. OLIVER HOCKENHULL, NEURONS TO NIRVANA

That's a rational faith, unlike an irrational one like says that; ''since I don't undersand X, it must mean that ..........".

It's fascinating how evangelicals put words in your mouth in their epic battle against strawmen. Makes you wonder - are they trying to convince you, or themselves?
 
It's fascinating how evangelicals put words in your mouth in their epic battle against strawmen. Makes you wonder - are they trying to convince you, or themselves?

Your message has no content, but just name-calling. Evangelical? Isn't that some religious concept? I'm a philosopher and think from first principles.

Try it this way. Let's say the guy says; ''I can't understand this, therefore I'll say it means....'' It's possible that people could posit several different meanings to his anecdote, let's say 10 different things. What methodology would you use to determine which is true? You could believe him, and he might say he talked to the jewish god, another guy might say no, it was really the devil, another guy might say he thinks it means that it was one of the hindu gods like Lord Krishna. I would say that since there is no proof and no way of testing, let's just consider it a product of your imagination, but if it turns out there is something to corroborate that it was say, the devil, then no problem.
 
Ah, there it is - Materialism as the "default position" when facing a mystery. Just as the default position for a fundamentalist Christian is "The bible says so". I don't have a problem with you taking any 'default position' you like, but why come here and try to prosthelytize?
By 'materialism', I guess you mean what is often called 'reality', right? But there is a big difference between a bias towards reality and the religious notion of obeying a bible. That would be more false logic since we know that religious texts are not evidence of anything.
When faced with a mystery, there is nothing wrong with a person admitting they don't know; one doesn't have to make up anything at all.
 
It doesn't make much sense to me to claim that by labeling an experience as '...just imagination...' it is somehow providing us with a solution.

There need be no pretence to a 'solution', in the absence of any evidence, we can just say the old maid imagined something, like that she was kidnapped and held as a sex slave by ETs.
 
By 'materialism', I guess you mean what is often called 'reality', right? But there is a big difference between a bias towards reality and the religious notion of obeying a bible. That would be more false logic since we know that religious texts are not evidence of anything.
Materialism is a philosophical belief system, not a logical or scientific fact. The only thing making it the default position for you is that you have adopted it as such. It appears you've unknowingly made some assumptions about the nature of reality. That's fine, we all do it, but no need to assert them here as truth. Most of us are here to investigate the nature of reality and have intelligent discussions about different possibilities. I will be the first to admit I don't have an answer.

What many here object to is your insistence that your belief system is the correct one. Like any "True Believer", you have equated your belief system to reality.

When faced with a mystery, there is nothing wrong with a person admitting they don't know; one doesn't have to make up anything at all.
I enthusiastically agree. Maybe you should try it? ;)

I've said enough here...anyone want to get this thread back on topic?
 
I think they exist so we can benefit from them, who says you can not still follow a traditional spiritual path and still not benefit from entheogens? Why does it have to be one or the other? They offer a way free of dogma without the hangovers of religion. Although if you dig, you see that all traditions have roots connected with entheogens even if they currently do not condone intoxication in their doctrines.

Fair point, LS. If people don't confuse the two, it's possible there's benefits to be had from both. It's just that for me personally, I think it would muddy the waters.
 
Your message has no content, but just name-calling. Evangelical? Isn't that some religious concept?

For the discerning reader:

Another tactic employed by materialist evangelicals is to throw in underhanded mockery, implying anyone who doesn't see this stuff as "day dreams" or "just imagination" is of subpar intelligence. At which point, after being called out as evangelicals, they'll take a Who? Me? approach like seen here.

I'm a philosopher and think from first principles.

Unless you have a doctorate, I'd be careful throwing that claim around. Even then everyone is a philosopher. Anyone seeking to promote a particular viewpoint as the best conclusion is evangelical. More so if it demands ignoring evidence that allows for alternative, equally valid, views. (I'm an honest evangelical for Creative Agnosticism.)

I think religious evangelicals are just more honest about what they are doing. IME materialist evangelicals employ way more shaming tactics, such or attempting to use comparisons for the sake of mockery:

we can just say the old maid imagined something, like that she was kidnapped and held as a sex slave by ETs.

Hmmm...Might be some reliance of sexism here as well.

As for first principles, let's consider go into why we might at least take an agnostic position on the psychedelic and NDE experiences:

1) Since we can only start with Cogito Ergo Sum, and as Berkeley points out we only know things apart from Mind through sensory experience, we could easily say that Idealism is the default position. McGinn notes the odd way in which consciousness has no definitive spacial quality that suggest something weird might be going on regarding Mind's place in seemingly external reality.

2) We know there's a Hard Problem , and we know Chalmers thinks the materialist explanations are lacking. He offers a few options, including Neutral Monsim, the idea that Matter and Mind are made from some other substance. So now we have Idealism and Neutral Monism as alternatives to Materialism. This would give us a reason to think there might be a larger reality the transcendental experiences connect to. (Some mathematical modeling on how this larger reality could construct this one is discussed in this paper by Donald Hoffman.)

3) Another possibility Chalmers discusses is panpsychism, adopted by neuroscientists Koch and Valera. This might pose a larger problem for the afterlife than the interaction with plant consciousness, though Hammeroff has offered a possibility for souls.

Now that we've discussed the plausibility, we can think about some interesting aspects of the psychedelic experience itself.

1) There's some interesting commonality between alien abduction experiences, DMT experiences, and shamanic mythology. Even if it's all in the brain, that means something fascinating is happening with the brain.

2) When you read Strassman's Spirit Molecule, you come across some weird commonality in certain experiences by people who AFAICTell wouldn't have much contact with each other. One of notable interest, and apparently recorded in other research as well, is the vision of the Carnival. This in and of itself doesn't necessarily prove there's something immaterial going on, though again I can see no reason to insist the material argument is correct.

3) The incredible alterations in opinions regarding reality that comes from both NDEs and the psychedelic experience. Not everyone is a convert to a form of immaterialism, so again there's no smoking gun, but the shift in certainty should give one cause to wonder about the experience.

eta:

Apologies Sciborg, I think I asked this before, but did he say this recently?

Well it's possible he changed his mind, but I'll try to find the Youtube video which has him talking about this.

Note that he said he thought it was worthy of note, not that he believed it was proof of immaterialism.
 
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Here are a bunch. Lots of tunnels. Wormholes. Supreme beings. Life transforming experiences. Other entities. DMT at low does seems to give a limited color show. But at higher does the experience is much different.

I checked out some of the reports. I can't say that I'm convinced there's a close parallel between the two. I liked a couple of Robert Perry's posts, and the report he included, from someone who's had both and NDE and pschedelic experiences, is instructive.

If there are specific reports (I found it impractical to plow through all the many reports in the references you supplied) that show closer similarities to NDEs, please let me have the links and I'll take a closer look.
 
There is one really important way in which DMT and NDEs are very similar, in neither case are the people actually dead, but still alive, and we know that the human mind is capable of all sorts of imaginings.

Thanks for that. Human imagination is amazing, isn't it? All the more so when declared clinically dead with no discernible brain activity. The corollary is that the more vibrantly alive you are, the less imaginative you should be.
 
D. Shropshire, as a sceptic who's peddling ill-informed opinions, you're in the wrong thread. Please take it to the Critical Discussions forum. This is a Mod+ thread, which as someone fairly new here, you may not know that sceptics like you are requested not to contribute to. Carry on here, and you might find yourself suspended for a while.
 
Materialism is a philosophical belief system, not a logical or scientific fact. The only thing making it the default position for you is that you have adopted it as such. It appears you've unknowingly made some assumptions about the nature of reality. That's fine, we all do it, but no need to assert them here as truth. Most of us are here to investigate the nature of reality and have intelligent discussions about different possibilities. I will be the first to admit I don't have an answer.

What many here object to is your insistence that your belief system is the correct one. Like any "True Believer", you have equated your belief system to reality.


I enthusiastically agree. Maybe you should try it? ;)

I've said enough here...anyone want to get this thread back on topic?

So it sounds like your saying that 'materialism' is not what we normally call 'reality'. If something is proven to be real, like the e-coli bacterium, then I'll believe it. Is that what you call 'materialism'? Or, what do you call all those things in the natural world that actually exist? If I challenge some guy on something supernatural, that has never been proven to exist, like the holy ghost, what would you call that? I only accept something as truth, if it's proven to be.....true, not by any 'belief system', or 'dogmatism', or unsubstantiated assumption.
If you suspend me from this forum, that's fine. I only like to contribute to forums that that are not censored from divergence of opinion, or thinking from first principles.
 
Thanks for that. Human imagination is amazing, isn't it? All the more so when declared clinically dead with no discernible brain activity. The corollary is that the more vibrantly alive you are, the less imaginative you should be.
No, that doesn't follow......either. Nor do I see anybody answering my query about how you can call a guy dead when no death certificate has been issued, and there is no copy of the doctors tape saying; ''patient died at 3:15pm''.
 
No, that doesn't follow......either. Nor do I see anybody answering my query about how you can call a guy dead when no death certificate has been issued, and there is no copy of the doctors tape saying; ''patient died at 3:15pm''.

Fer cryin' out loud: you can't see what a chump you're making of yourself. Once again, please stop posting on this thread and take it to the C&D forum.
 
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